Why is it that our old school characters get pushed out of the window for over marketed characters? I asked myself that question today. And this is what I've come up with. In the beginning when there weren't very many games it was easy to come up with new character ideas that truly changed how we could think of characters. Characters like Little Mac and Bub and Bob were revolutionary simply because they were first. They had fun games in which you play these characters. Little Mac is the main star from Punch Out!. A game which you take this little rookie boy to become the new Boxing Champ. You defy all odds against better opponents through your cunning and ability to pick up on the little things that your opponent does in order to win. Bub and Bob were these cute little dragons that had a different way of attacking than you normally saw. It wasn't just your regular little guy attacking various little other guys. This time you were a dragon (or two if you played multiplayer) going through level after level in a small area using bubbles to trap your enemies. But after you trap them is it over? Nope, you have attack them again to actually get rid of them. Games like these at the start of the video game era were massive. You couldn't go into an arcade without seeing a Bubble Bobble machine. Soon you weren't able to go into other various locations such as Bowling Alleys and Laundramats. These games were truly original for the sake of being original. Now we move on a bit into the mid 90s. Now you start seeing repeat upon repeat of various heroes. You see a space marine trying to save the world from outer space, you see top down aircraft games start to litter the market. You see sports game after sports game never really improving much. They were just there since the original one was popular. Every now and then you see a new game that was really unique. It may not be unique through game play, since at the time there were severe limitations on what your game can do. Instead you start to see the birth of character development. Instead of being one guy that must save the world from other little guys. You get weirder characters with more personality. One of the games that come to mind is Earthworm Jim. Yes this game is one of my absolute favorite games. Not because of the concept of the game, but how it was actually done. In Earthworm Jim you are an average earthworm that gets a super suit dropped on your head. This supersuit allows you to become a semi intelligent life form. Upon getting the super suit you start off fighting your way to rescue the world from the evil queen Slug-for-a-Butt. Your weapons are a ray gun that happened to fall with the suit...and your own head. You would use your head as a whip to attack your enemies or just use it to hook your self on to a hook that was just out of reach. While this gameplay may not be revolutionary the style of character was. You were just a semi intelligent worm with a big ego trying to make your way in the world. The many funny things that Jim says and does are what hooked me to this game and never let me go. Characters like Jim started to become popular. The quick wit that the game developers had showed in their games like Earthworm Jim and Toejam and Earl. Games like these found a way to be unique when other games were just shadows upon shadows. Now once we hit in the 2000s and late 2000s finding unique games are harder. You start to get more and more repeats of original games with no improvement and no wit to them. Every now and then you find a game that is truly unique. The game that comes to mind here is the game Glover for the Nintendo 64. Who would have ever thought of making a game about a glove. And the glove wouldn't be by it's self. It will have a ball to do various puzzle solving tasks. The way it was done was a fresh new unique style to gameplay rather than seeing yet another space marine taking on the hordes of aliens. I just wish we could go back to the old school days of unique heroes. Types of characters that were different. If not by visually, but by personality. I'm tired of these I am the only man that can save the world games. They tend to not have the unique personality to try and offset their repetitive gameplay.